Natalie Tennant on Drugs

Federal registry to prevent "doctor shopping

Tennant acknowledges that one issue currently hindering the growth of industry is the state's prevailing drug issue, and she said that addressing that problem has been a large part of her push for Senate. She mentioned ideas like establishing a federal
registry to address people going across borders and "doctor shopping," assisting doctors to ensure they're policing themselves, increasing prevention and treatment programs and creating more treatment facilities. "We have to do prevention first."

It costs us less to rehabilitate than to jail someone

Q: What will you do as governor to address the drug epidemic?

A: You know, this one is a huge concern of mine. I worry about the drug epidemic. This is a scary thought: It does not discriminate. It's all across the board.
No matter who you are, you could become addicted to prescription medication. It's killing people. It tears families apart. It's driving up our crime.
And it's overcrowding our jails as well. And what I'm going to do is bring together the medical community, the pharmacists, the educators, the judicial community, in terms of law enforcement, as well, and we address it with programs to make sure
we get the illegal drugs off the street, that we also educate folks and that we have rehabilitation in place. Because it's another do-it-now or do-it-later aspect, that it costs us less to rehabilitate than it does to house someone.

Focus on rehabilitation for drug abuse

"Dealing with the drug abuse problems is one of my priorities as well. Drug abuse does not discriminate. It's killing our people, destroying our families and putting a strain on our jails and judicial system," she said. "How are we going
to rehabilitate folks? Can we get folks to work? Can they come to a day center instead of jail? I think we can put folks in day centers, let them get their GEDs and have them help clean up our communities.
I think we need to focus on rehabilitation. It's core to our society."

Tennant said funds earmarked for treatment, recovery and rehabilitation must be proven to be used efficiently. "If we're going to put
$500,000 in a program, let's see how it's spent and then increase funding from there," she said. "It goes back to accountability and transparency."